How Instagram Can Be An Important Part of Your Growth Marketing Framework
Since you’re reading this post, we’re going to assume that you’ve already decided that Instagram needs to be an all-important part of the growth marketing strategy for you to help scale and grow your business.
Instagram ads enable businesses to reach out to over 1 billion people every month. This is a good reason for starters, for you to consider advertising on Instagram to grow your business. Millions of engaged consumers interact regularly with these brands.
But here are some impressive stats in case you’re not sold.
1 billion people use Instagram every month
51% of users are female and 49% are male (so your audience is there)
130 million users tap on shopping posts every month
50% of people have visited a website to make a purchase after seeing it on Instagram
Now that we have established some basic numbers to justify investing time and expense into Instagram Ads and your Instagram channel, let us deep-dive into the rich and widely varied world of Instagram ads.
What are Instagram Ads and How Do They Contribute to the Growth Marketing Fundamentals of Your Business?
Instagram ads are either Stories or posts that a company pays to advertise in Instagram users’ feeds. They can appear as regular Instagram updates, but mostly they are labeled Sponsored.
Despite a multitude of reasons a business might choose to advertise on the platform. Instagram ads are generally used to:
increase brand awareness
generate greater traffic
create new leads
transfer existing leads down the sales funnel, or to generate repeat business
Since Instagram is a very visual site, stay away from text-heavy advertisements. To access your target audience with ads on Instagram, you’ll need an attractive image, a series of images, or a video (which can incorporate some text in bold font).
Instagram ads can cost anywhere between $0.20 and $6.70 on average, depending on the bidding model. Advertisers often have to pay $0.20 to $2 per click for CPC (cost-per-click). While for CPM, they can easily spend up to $6.70 per 1000 impressions or cost-per-impressions.
In a broad sense, Instagram ads’ cost per click rate is cheaper than its cost per impressions rate.
Now, with the basics sorted, let us deep-dive into the unfathomably lucrative world of Instagram ads.
What are Some Different Instagram Ad Types That Growth Focused Marketers Have to Consider to Help Spur Massive Revenue Growth
Instagram presents an ideal opportunity for both emerging and well-established brands. They can use different tools of this platform for producing well-crafted, stunning advertisements (as we have discussed so far.)
That said, let us now have a look at some of the most popular Instagram ads examples.
1. Photo Ads
Simple but classic, photo ads are one of the easiest types of Instagram ads to make.
They’re made up of just one photo, featured in either landscape or square format, and are a great way for brands to draw in new fans with creative imagery.
2. Carousel Ads
Carousel ads feature between 2-10 images and let users swipe between them, allowing brands to show off their range of products in one ad.
This is especially useful for brands that are launching a new line of products or collections, or making them available on your online store if you happen to be a reseller.
3. Video Ads
Video ads feature videos that can be up to 60 seconds long and are featured in either landscape or square format. These types of ads are a good way for brands to inspire customers with dynamic footage.
Despite lukewarm adoption at first, Instagram video ads now account for a significant chunk of all advertising on the platform.
These video advertisements can be a minute long at most, allowing you to allow users to get a closer look at your brand, company, services or products. On the other hand, shorter videos can also be more efficient, mainly if branding is used right in the ad’s first few seconds or if the videos showcase the company in a humorous or memorable light.
While this may seem like a lot to get a handle on, you can get a head-start by focusing on improving your video posts and ads.
Put out better quality video content more often to start preparing for the new priorities on the app.
There are 2 areas in particular that a business ought to focus on in order to make a greater impact with Instagram videos.
Increase your video production
Get comfortable with live video.
4. Story Ads
Instagram now allows brands to launch their own Instagram Story Ads; photos and videos that are available to their fans via their Stories feed for a limited amount of time.
With over 500 million people actively using Stories every day, this is a great way for brands to get in front of their target audience when they are most engaged.
Almost 86.6% of daily Instagram users post stories at least 2-3 times per week. There is also a sizable number who post stories daily, thus implying that stories attract massive traffic.
As a result, Stories ads require some astute targeting and product positioning.
Brands on Instagram account for a third of the most-watched Stories, and this is only expected to grow as Stories Ads grow in terms of popularity and reach. .
5. Instagram Targeting & Audience Building: Aka Retargeting
Instagram gives you the ability to interact with users who have previously interacted with your brand and profile. Using this information, you can bring back lost opportunities, such as abandoned shopping carts, and reach out to bring those users back.
CRM lists are especially valuable for retargeting efforts. Using your CRM lists and web-owned data, you can create lookalike audiences to reach an entirely new segment of qualified leads. More on this later.
Can Organic Instagram Growth Be a Part of the Tactical Marketing Mix at Growth-Focused Businesses
As much as the emphasis should be on paid ads, any compelling growth marketing strategy considers both paid and organic efforts.
Organic growth can happen, but it’s getting more difficult on every platform, Instagram included.
However, working on your organic growth will help your ads cost less over time, because it’ll be easier to find folks to engage with your content.
The best way to grow your follower count, and get your posts and business out to the right people is by running ads.
You can promote specific posts or your profile as a whole.
But, you should plan to spend at least a couple of dollars a day to run continuous Brand Awareness ads and Boosted Post ads as a way of leveraging your most popular organic posts or your brand name in a relatively inexpensive way.
. Here’s a step-by-step playbook for growing clients’ Instagram accounts:
We optimize their profile; image, description, and links.
We create an organic strategy; we decide on aesthetics, feed placement, write captions, and create content.
We schedule our posts a month in advance. We may post more or go live randomly, but we have our base posts set.
We choose a video post or Instagram story that’s performing well in the feed and run an ad promoting that post to a targeted audience.
We like to use an engagement metric, like Instagram Page Engagements, to build a Lookalike audience over the course of a couple of weeks
Then we run an ad promoting the page (and asking for follows), retargeting anyone who watched the video or the story.
With this approach, you will find that your account grows much more quickly, and in a comparably less expensive way
You’re targeting an engaged, interested audience, not a bunch of randoms that are less likely to become customers, so the investment seems more likely to become a worthwhile one.
Experiment with this strategy while varying your creatives here and there in order to see what works for your business.
Reasons Why Instagram Ads Can Be a Major Part of the Growth Marketing Funnel at Startups and Other Highly Growth-Focused Business
Instagram ads come with many benefits, including the use of various Instagram ad formats like carousel ads, video ads, story ads, and more. You can even boost existing Instagram posts to help your content reach more people. The benefits of Instagram advertising include the following:
Low costs
Instagram ads cost varies depending on the industry, audience, and other various factors. However, compared to other types of advertising, Instagram ad campaigns are much more cost-effective, allowing you to earn more website visitors and acquire more customers (CPA) for less.
Ease of use
Depending on your preferences, you can run ads from the Instagram app or use Facebook ads manager. Both methods are easy and allow you to design and tailor your Instagram ad campaign to reach your target audience.
Even better, you can create your entire Instagram ads campaign purely from your smartphone.
Drive traffic
Instagram ads help drive traffic to your website by allowing you to use clickable links in promoted posts. Adding a call to action (CTA) to your ads can help bring more customers to your website, where they can learn about your products and services or complete a conversion action like checking out or filling out a form, or making an online purchase.
Boost brand awareness
Instagram ads can help you increase your brand awareness by helping you reach more of your target audience faster than organic posts alone.
Instagram advertising allows you to compete with big box retailers and other popular brands by creating compelling ads that can make it into your audience's Instagram feed without the need for them to follow you.
Instead, you can reach your target audience by developing a campaign in ads manager that allows you to target individuals based on various factors, including gender, age, location, and interests.
Options
With Instagram advertising, you have options. There are several types of methods you can use for creating ads, including using an ads manager to create content or uploading your content when you're done designing it in another program. You can also use existing Instagram posts to create ads by boosting them to earn more impressions.
In addition, there are several types of ad formats, including video ads, image ads like single-image or carousel ads in various formats, Instagram stories ads, Reels, and Instagram Shop ads.
Why Growth-Focused Marketers Might Want to Exercise Caution Before Integrating Instagram Into Their Strategy for Generating Revenue Growth
Like any advertising platform, Instagram ads have a few drawbacks. Here are 4 in particular that are worth highlighting.
Limited audience
Before you invest in Instagram advertising, you must understand your audience. Even though Instagram has many users you can reach with ads, their main focus is primarily those individuals between the ages of 18 and 43.
If you're trying to reach young people, Instagram advertising might be the right solution for you based on this information. However, if you're trying to reach the older generations, Instagram ads may be more costly with fewer conversions.
Instead, businesses with an older target audience may opt for other social networks like Facebook or LinkedIn, depending on the nature of the business.
Image-based
Instagram is an image-based app.
Therefore, there's not a ton of space for text, so if your image or graphic doesn't speak for itself, you may not have enough space to explain your offer or the purpose of your ads. Since copy can be important in helping convince users to click the ad, Instagram advertising may not be right for you if you need more text to explain the product or service details.
Less advanced features
Instagram ads offer less advanced features than other advertising platforms. This can be beneficial for small business owners who want to avoid a steep learning curve. However, it also means fewer capabilities than Facebook ads.
For example, Facebook ads offer more detailed targeting to help you effectively target your audience. Of course, you can use Facebook ads manager to create and run Instagram ads, but your options are more limited.
Best Practices for Creating a Growth Marketing Strategy Focused on Instagram
Now that we have established some of the reasons why Instagram is a highly sought-after growth marketing channel, some ad formats, as well as some of the ways Instagram may work or not work for your business, we will now go over some best practices that will allow growth-focused businesses to use Instagram in a way that allows them to maximize their revenues or growth from it.
Define your goals
Before you get started, it’s important to give careful consideration to the goals of your Instagram marketing and ad campaign efforts. Maybe you’d like to grow your audience or raise brand awareness. Perhaps you want to drive traffic to your site or online store. Or, maybe you’d like to promote specific products, increase sales, or encourage mobile app downloads. Determining the purpose of your will help decide on your message, audience, and call to action.
Instagram is primarily a mobile medium, so be sure to keep that in mind as you’re developing your campaign, too. For instance, if your website or online store isn’t optimized for mobile users, your Instagram ad should focus on brand awareness or list growth rather than encouraging web traffic or increasing conversions.
When defining your goals, always ensure you can effectively measure your Instagram ad performance. The platform's ad manager makes it easy to measure everything from impressions to clicks on an ad, including your cost per click.
Determine your audience
Choosing the right audience, and ensuring that the content you serve is relevant to that audience is the key to running a successful Instagram ad. Instagram offers some targeting options to help you reach the right people at the right time. You can target users based on location, demographics, interests, behavior, and more based on the data you've collected through both Instagram and Facebook.
For example, if you're a retailer that specializes in men's winter clothing, for example, don't target an audience that consists of both men and women between the ages of 18-65 and who live in the United States. Selecting such a broad audience often leads to lower Instagram engagement and clickthrough rates, which can even result in your ad being canceled.
Instead, use your contact list to build an audience of Instagram users who are similar to your existing customers and subscribers. Leverage your subscriber activity and e-commerce data to create powerful segments that help you show relevant ads to the right people.
Targeting your existing subscribers on Instagram is a great way to reconnect with customers who are already engaged with your business. Our segmentation tools allow you to leverage what you already know about your contacts to create relevant ads that focus on conversions and retention. Some ideas for effective targeting of your existing customer list on Instagram include:
IPotential customers. Create a segment of subscribers who haven’t made a purchase just yet. Drive traffic to your store by showcasing your newest items, highlighting your best sellers, or advertising a special offer for new customers.
Recent customers. Create a segment of customers who have recently purchased an item from your store, then target them with ads for products they just bought, or promoting similar products they might also enjoy.
Repeat customers. Create a segment of customers who have placed multiple orders from your store, then show your appreciation by giving them early access to new products or exclusive sales.
Lapsed customers. Create a segment of customers who haven’t made a purchase from your store or opened/clicked your email lately, and create an ad to re-engage them.
Former customers and non-subscribers. Create a segment of people who have unsubscribed from your list or haven’t subscribed yet. Target them with an ad that builds awareness around your business, delivers your message, or offers incentives.
People with similar interests
Since Instagram accounts are tied to Facebook profiles, Instagram has a lot of data about its users that can help marketers find the right audience. When you create an ad targeting people on Instagram who are similar to the contacts on your email lists with lookalike audiences, you can put that data to work for you. Instagram analyzes the Facebook profiles of your email list contacts, then creates an audience of similar people based on shared interests, behaviors, and demographics. You can even narrow down the audience by location, gender, age range, or interest keywords. This can be an effective option for introducing your brand or products to new people and growing your list. With lookalike audiences, you can create lists of:
People similar to your best customers. Once you’ve connected your store, you can create a segment based on the purchase history of your customers. For example, you might choose to use a segment of customers whose total amount spent is more than $100, or a segment of customers whose total number of orders is greater than 2.
People similar to your most engaged subscribers. Create a segment based on subscribers who have a high contact rating. In this instance, you’d use a segment of subscribers with a contact rating greater than 4 stars.
Potential customers with clear defined interests.
There are other cases, however, where you might want to harness the power of Instagram and Facebook’s data by creating an ad that targets people based on unique criteria you define. You can narrow down your audience by location, gender, age range, or interest keywords.
This option provides growth-focused businesses with the tools they need to build brand awareness and grow their customer lists. If you’re a new marketer or a business with a small contact list, this tool can help you find potential customers.
Here are a few things to consider:
Where else does your ideal customer shop? You can use those other brands as interest keywords to help define your target audience.
Do you typically sell more stuff to women? Or, do you find that men are more likely to purchase your products? Target based on gender to increase the relevance of your ad.
How old is your target audience? Are most of your customers' twentysomethings, or are they more likely to be grandparents? Plug in an age range to make sure you’re reaching the right people.
Choose the right image
When you create an Instagram ad campaign, you’ll have the option to create a carousel or single-image ad, just as you would with Facebook. Carousel ads work well when you want to tell a story or showcase a collection of products, but if you’d rather call attention to or drive sales of a specific product or service, a single-image ad is a better option.
Instagram is a visual platform, so there are several things to keep in mind as you’re selecting your images, besides the image size.
Focus on your products. If your Instagram ad is intended to showcase or sell your products, don’t be afraid to use eye-catching images that put the focus on those products. This differs from Facebook ads, which instead thrive on slice-of-life imagery that shows the benefits of your business or products, even if that means putting less emphasis on the products themselves.
Keep text to a minimum. Remember that Instagram users are there to see images. As you’re planning your ad, try to think of new and interesting ways to tell the story of your brand and products without using words.
Use high-resolution images. A beautiful, high-quality image will help grab the attention of your audience as they scroll through their Instagram feeds. Since most smartphones are equipped with powerful cameras, you won’t need any special equipment to get started—just set up the shot, make sure the lighting and composition are compelling, and snap a quick picture.
Measure and analyze your ad creative results
Instagram ads make it easy for you to measure the results of your campaign and test them in real-time. Once you have your SMART goals for your campaign, you can begin measuring everything from impressions to clicks, and ad cost per click to help you understand how your ads are performing and find new ways to reduce your ad spend without sacrificing conversions.
You can simply sign into ads manager to review their performance and decide which elements to test to help you discover what drives the most website traffic and conversions.
Instagram has even more options for you to choose from, but what's crucial is finding which format resonates best with your audience. Therefore you should always measure each campaign and compare different campaigns to help you decide where to put more or less ad spend.
Make Instagram a Part of Your Growth Marketing Playbook Today!
Now that you know what is involved in creating an efficient Instagram ad strategy that is tailored to your business, you are one step away from knowing how to go about leveraging this incredible social media channel to generate greater sales and conversions for your business.
Looking for additional guidance? Work with our Instagram advertising experts to supercharge the possibilities that Instagram holds for your growth-focused business.
While you are at, why not schedule a free no-obligation growth marketing consultation with our team to assess your current marketing strategy? Our growth marketing experts look forward to sitting down with you to learn more about your business and to see where our experience can be of benefit to you.